Hi,
I've read when customizing a racquet one should add weight to the handle to increase spin and to the head to increase power.
Is this right and this simple?
Would love to ear your experience and thoughts about this.
Thanks.

The popular pro approach today is the polarized setup with weight at the ends of the racquets. This gives you a good combination of good balance, high swingweight, low static weight and dynamic flex.

Hum interesting thought.
Though you don't get the "torsional stability" that comes from using lead in 3 and 9 o'clock positions on the head, but well... maybe that is not that important when counting for everything else

Maybe a lot of the pros don't need the torshional stability because they're better at hitting the sweetspot regularly or technology has improved. Berdych uses a ton of lead at 3/9 - maybe it's needed for that particular frame.

I have to put a lot of lead at 3/9 on the YT Prestige MP as it is very harsh without it. I've been playing around with the IG Prestige MP and I don't feel any harshness without the lead at 3/9. Maybe it's better technology or an internal rearrangement of mass but the IG Prestige MP seems to be a better racquet to me. My IGs have a polarized setup while my YTs do not.

I prefer a racquet that's sort of heavy and also rather head-light. The overall heft gives me a feeling of having "enough" stability, especially around the net or against harder hitters. That heft is usually more manageable for me if that racquet has 9-10 points HL balance for better maneuverability.

Lead on the handle tunes the balance easily enough, but if I get that right and still don't have the amount of stability in the hoop that I want, I also prefer 3/9 o'clock lead placement more than putting it up at the top (12 o'clock). Just a little bit of lead tape in the 3/9 layout seems to go a good long way toward promoting that extra plow-through when I need it. Your mileage may certainly vary, but the good news is that it's just tape. If it doesn't work right for you, it's no biggie to peel it off and start over.

Just a few quick notes on 12:00, 3:00 & 9:00 locations that have been mentioned.

The free lunch at 3-9: Often you will arrive at nearly identical swingweights with adding either 3 grams at the tip, or 6 grams (3 on each side) at 3:00 and 9:00. If you look at this choice in a cost vs benefit sort of way, what you will find is:

1. You will pay just about the same price... ie, both racquets will be more difficult to swing, by about the same amount of increased difficulty

2. Both racquets will have the about the same potential power increase for most, but not all strokes.

3. But only one, the 3-9 location, adds lateral stability for shots hit just outside the sweet spot. It's almost as if you get a free lunch with the 3-9 location.

However, if you want to dig deeper, the choice becomes more nuanced. One big factor hardly ever discussed here is that every racquet ever made since the beginning of time has a dead spot. There is a spot near the tip of every frame where the ball simply does not want to bounce. You can confirm this yourself at home very easily. Just press the butt of the racquet onto the edge of a table, with the remainder of the frame hanging freely off the edge. If you drop a ball onto various locations on the string bed, what you will discover is that the ball bounces pretty high right in the center. It bounces even a little higher, slightly south of center. But out near the tip, the ball just not want to bounce at all. Complete dudsville.

About the tip/dead spot : The tip of the racquet is moving very quickly in a serving motion, fairly quickly when you are hitting a groundie, and not very quickly at all when you are blocking back a 100 mph serve. We have all noticed that you can hit the ball near the tip on a serve and still get a pretty decent result. (It hurts like hell but the ball still goes over the net with decent pace) That's because on a serve, the tip is traveling pretty fast (about 100 mph on a 100 mph serve) and is traveling faster than the speed of the strings on center. The added acceleration there cancels out some of the dead spot deficiency. You've also probably noticed when you strike the ball near the tip when you are blocking back a tough 1st serve, the ball often lands at the bottom of the net. The tip isn't moving fast enough to compensate for the dead spot.

(to be continued... gotta grab the train back to Jackville, and that's enough to chew on for now)

1. If you find that you are often mis-hitting the ball to the hi side on strokes where the racquet is moving slowly, such as a volley or block return, having some lead at 12 will be a big help with the dead spot area described in greater detail my previous post.

2. The serving motion is highly idiosyncratic. I hate serving with lead at 12. With my timing, it just seems to me just really hard to generate racquet head speed. However, there are many players who perceive that, due to momentum, the tip lead assists them in generating racquet head speed in the latter stages of the stroke. I think both views can be correct, it really depends upon how the stroke flows for each player.

3. You would like increase your SW while adding the least amount of overall weight.

Suggestion: If you've never experimented with lead before, I would start out with 3-9 and counter balance at the buttcap. That's the holy trinity right there. That will cover all three bases, (swingweight, recoilweight, and twistweight), while still keeping your racquet balanced and still fairly easy to swing. If you want to experiment with lead at the tip, a little goes a long way at that location. Even just adding 1-2 grams of cloth bumper guard tape changes the feel of your swing quite a bit.